Rewind the Road
by SnowKiter
Summary: There is a ritual Red undertakes every year.


This is actually just something I wrote some time ago, to practice writing in present tense, because I am awful at that. I guess there is somewhat of a plot behind it...eh kinda. It probably doesn't even make sense, and it's rather long-winded but...whatever. xD

But Red is my guinea pig for writing so now he serves as my lab rat for present tense. Yay. :D

Set in the game universe, I suppose.

Disclaimer: Pokemon is not owned by me.

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><p><em><strong><span>Rewind the Road<span>**_

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><p>Once a year, he returns to the place where the roads lead back to the beginning. It's the place where time seems to stand still, where seasons roll by impulsively, or not at all. Kanto is where he makes the same journey he has traced countless times before. He still remembers the first time he had traced through this route, and all the achievements then. That is the first time though, and nothing will ever be the same as that. His subsequent returns to this journey are different, for they are in reverse.<p>

During this time, Red challenges the Elite Four first, starting with Lance. The first time he does this, they are puzzled and confused as to why he demands to battle the Champion first. But they are used to it now and whenever he returns to the Indigo Plateau at this time of the year, Lance meets him personally.

Lance is not Blue. He battles in a distinctly different manner, with a different kind of passion and intensity; his moves are calculated and cold and have an edge of chill that makes it feel odd to Red, to face Lance as the Champion instead of his rival, even after all of this time. Nonetheless, Red has still faced him countless times before and this time, it is no different.

He lives to win. He had been born to win.

Red snatches the victory with sure, practiced hands...but no congratulation is given to him. Instead, Lance offers him a look of almost consolation, quietly bids him good luck with a voice that sounds unsure whether he should be sympathetic or not. Red can feel the Dragon Master's eyes on his back as he turns and leaves.

Agatha is no longer before Lance. It's a pity, because Red had gotten fond of the old lady's pronged insults which she hurls at him every time they used to battle. A young woman stands before him now, her eyes holding a playful, curious light. Her name is Karen and she has probably heard of him long ago—Red can tell that she wants to hold a conversation, to discover why he returns every year to challenge the Elite Four backwards. But she doesn't ask. Red isn't one of many words, and they have learned that at least.

Bruno and Koga are still there. They recognize him without fail despite the year that has passed and how he has changed from a growth spurt that year, and how he has grown his hair a little bit out. Red wonders vaguely where Lorelei has gone, because he can understand retirement in Agatha's case—but the Ice-type Trainer is much younger and her arrogant temperament had provided a sort of established welcome into the League. He is sorry to see her gone, as well.

After the defeat of the Elite Four, Red goes to visit his old friend. The path to Viridian City is short and quaint and uneventful—his rival greets him in the Gym, with an unchanged grin. Blue has grown older with him, taller, his eyes holding a more mature light. But his swagger is still the same, the fire burning as bright as ever.

"Hey, all because I'm a Gym Leader now doesn't mean you underestimate me," Blue says, cocking the Pokeball in his hand like he is going to hurl it like a baseball. "I've only gotten better since you last battled me. But I've already told you that, haven't I? Well, glad you came back, Red. We've got some catching up to do."

By "catching up" Blue means a battle and Red sends out the Pikachu perched on his shoulder without a word. His rival has indeed improved, but he is still no match. Red crushes him without remorse because that is the best kind of respect he can show.

He lives to win. He had been born to win.

Despite his earlier comments, Blue doesn't seem particularly surprised about the loss. Instead, he asks about Red's next destination even though both of them know, perfectly well, the path he takes every time.

"Going back, huh?" The Viridian Gym Leader says softly. "You know you don't have to do this every time. You could skip it all and go back to Pallet Town right now—it's practically down the street."

Red does not answer, but his rival doesn't need one.

"See ya later in Lavender Town, then. Say 'hi' to her for me."

Red nods and departs the Gym.

After that, the road is his companion for a while. Red has long outgrown the bicycle he purchased once with a free voucher, and now rides a larger, sleeker one—a new model, for they are always making new things, making improvements. The road of Kanto hasn't changed much though. Red is familiar with these roads and he knows the niches and bumps in it, the dents and well-trodden breadths and widths. There, upon the endless path he knows better than the back of his hand, he rides, rides hard and fast and tireless like he is hunting and being hunted by the wind. Over pavement, over dirt, under low-hanging branches, into caves. He knows the path well and traces it with the wheels of his bike.

He rides like he has no destination, like nothing in the universe exists except for the ungraspable past he has lost but is still chasing. Where he cannot ride, he runs, and where he cannot run, he pushes through upon the back of one of his Pokemon. There is a rhythm, a cadence, a comfort in the endless ride—the only sounds the cry of the wind, his labored breathing as he pushes on relentlessly, the hum of the wheels of the bike. The only sensations are the metal of the pedals, the burning of tired legs, and Pikachu clinging to his back.

When he reaches the shore, Red reluctantly folds away his bike and summons Lapras to carry him across the broad back of the sea. The Ice-type has done this many times before and traces the path to and past the Seafoam Islands without needing his instructions.

Blaine is still his cheerful, jolly old self, even after all of these years. Red had been shocked to return and find the Gym Leader alone on the Seafoam Islands with a sad smile and news that Cinnabar had been destroyed by volcanic activity. The Gym has been rebuilt now along with Cinnabar Town. Red enters and is delighted to find familiar replicas of the quiz machines that match the ones in the past Cinnabar Gym. He clears them without trouble and goes to greet Blaine.

The joy of battle once again makes Red forget his destination. He moves as one with his Pokemon, souls alight with the fury of combat. The battle is the dance, the cry of orders the song, searing attacks arcing like a light show over their heads. This is what they are meant to do, the dance they are meant to dance, and the song that they sing and hum in their heads.

He lives to win. He had been born to win.

After Red's victory, Blaine gives the young man a hearty pat on the back before sending him off.

Red doesn't bother to rest at all. Immediately upon hitting solid land, he pulls out his bike and is speeding north. And he rides. Once again, he is pedaling through towns without seeing them, the timelessness of the world descending on him. For a period of time, nothing matters except for the journey. There is no beginning or end. He knows his destination but doesn't think about it, leaving it a dusty imprint in the back of his mind.

He reaches Celadon, where Sabrina is expecting his arrival. She has changed too, changed in attire, and somewhat in demeanor. She is a little more open, a little brighter. She greets him kindly, and gets right down into the battle. Sabrina understands his urgency, his anguish, his need to undertake this yearly ritual.

"I foresaw my loss," she says afterwards, looking him over like he is the one who had lost. "I wish you the best of luck, Red, and hope that you take care of yourself."

Now Red pauses at the Pokemon Center, not to heal his Pokemon, but to part with one of them. His Lapras gives him a sad but understanding look as they reach the entrance of the center but Red still feels guilty as he walks over to the PC. He deposits Lapras without a word, turning off the computer quickly so he does not look at the Pokemon's image on the screen for too long. He will be reunited soon, but for now, Lapras will stay in the PC. It had been at Silph Co. where he received the Transport Pokemon, before his battle with Sabrina. He did not have Lapras then and he will not use it for the next Gyms—such is his journey of rewind.

Red leaves the Center without a backwards glance and mounts his bicycle.

His journey leads back to Fuchsia, where Koga's Gym still stands. His daughter now runs it, and she employs the same invisible walls that Red had once struggled with. He knows how to see them now, though, and easily navigates them despite how she has changed some of their positions. She is truly her father's daughter, battling the same way, saying the same words. Sometimes, in the midst of the battle, Red looks at her gesturing figure and sees Koga again.

And after Red's win—for he has never lost except for that one time—he visits the Pokemon Center once again, this time to deposit Snorlax.

He continues like that for a while, and with every Gym from there, he leaves another member of his party, in backwards order of capture. By the time Red reaches Brock, he has only Pikachu with him.

"Hey Red," the Pewter City Leader greets him. "That time of the year again isn't it?"

He nods, Pikachu hopping down from his shoulder in preparation for battle. Brock regards the Electric mouse with a mixture of affection and something like mock resentment. He usually does not have any trouble with any Electric-types, wiping them out effectively with the Earthquake moves most of his Pokemon carry. But this one is more than different.

Red smiles grimly, for even with only one move, Iron Tail, effective against Brock's team, Pikachu will win. Pikachu always wins.

Because he lives to win, just like his Trainer.

"That's it," Brock says quietly as he withdraws his last Pokemon. "You can go home now, Red."

He says it like the cycle of the journey is a prison for Red, something that traps him and forces him to be detained and keeps him from returning to Pallet Town sooner. It's not like that though. The journey is the unraveling of something Red keeps coiled up tightly, something he has locked away for a long time.

Red heads home.

He passes through Viridian Forest, even encounters a tiny wild Pikachu that seems puzzled as to why he is in such a hurry. He goes through the Weedles and the Caterpie, the grass and the nostalgia. Viridian City is a brief flash as he passes, forcing his bike down the ridges that lead to the tiny town where it all began long ago.

Just as Pallet Town emerges into view, the smoke of quaint chimneys painting swirls in the bright blue sky, another figure on a different bike almost passes him. Red stops short, cranking harshly down on the brakes and almost throwing Pikachu off of his shoulder. He turns to face the other bicyclist who has also halted.

Leaf flashes him a brief smile, the Jigglypuff sitting in the crook of her arms giving him a lazy look. Red regards her for a while, not moving, the only sound the wind seeping sleepily between them. Leaf turns, her foot back on the pedal of her bike. She has already visited Pallet Town, already finished the same journey he undertakes.

She makes a gesture with her head. _Go on._

Red turns back to face Pallet Town and listens closely as she kicks down hard on the pedal, the familiar sound of bike tire snarling through knotted grass reaching his ears. After a second, the noise vanishes abruptly, and Red looks back to see her gone. From his angle, her departing figure should be visible, but there is no trace of anyone at all.

He smiles blankly and enters his town, drifting like a ghost, through the first and last patch of grass, through the entrance. There is no one outside except for a few small children who are too busy playing by the stream to notice or recognize him. Red silently passes by Blue's house—he'll visit Daisy later—and halts in front of his own residence.

To complete the cycle in the strictest way possible, Red knows he should leave Pikachu at Professor Oak's laboratory and go home alone, alone, like when he had begun the first journey. The first time, he had attempted to. Pikachu had refused to be parted though, even for only a moment, and now accompanies him solemnly to the door. The Electric mouse sits down, waits patiently for his Trainer to enter.

The house is unchanged, the windows somber and dark. The Trainer reaches out slowly, grasps the doorknob, opens the door. It doesn't make a single squeak as it is pushed open, as if fearing something will punish it should it misbehave.

Daisy has kept the house clean—there's not a single trace of dust on the shiny kitchen counter, and all the plants are green with life and regularly watered. It might seem almost like someone still lives here.

His footsteps resonate hollowly through the empty house, each step thundering as he climbs up the stairs, Pikachu following closely.

Now he is in his room, where it all had begun and it all has now ended. It's the end of the path, the end of the cycle for now. He has been gone too long, and he has regretted it, and now, this is all he is left with.

Red walks slowly to the center of the room, facing the far wall where a tiny table lays. There is a little framed photograph perched there, along with an unlit pot of incense and a fresh flower wreath. Red doesn't have any flowers himself, but he kneels in front of the photo, staring into the eyes of the person there. She smiles back, her frozen eyes fixed forward. The picture had been taken when Red was six years old, and she looks youthful and vibrant in the musty room.

Her actual grave is in Lavender Town, in the cemetery for humans recently built there. Red will visit that place later, with everyone else who meets him there every year, on this day. Blue is probably already there, and if he takes too long, Red will recieve an impatient (and concerned, though Blue would never admit it) phone call.

Pikachu burrows into his hand and Red pats the yellow fur gently, his eyes vacantly gazing into the photograph. The tears are gone; they are long cried dry and there is nothing left but the journey and the road and the cycle.

He silently mouths the words that he never got to say to her again, the words that come too late now, words once again sealing the journey he had begun so long ago in another complete cycle.

"_I'm home, Mom."_

He lives to win and that has cost him.

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><p><em>-Owari-<em>

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><p>Yeah it's kind impossible to catch the three starters in the wild in any sort of order, so there's a random plot hole right there. Euh.<p>

I have no idea how Pikachu would defeat Brock's Steelix. Maybe the sheer level difference would be enough? xD

And there we are with randomness that was also probably really long-winded and frustrating and made no sense. And passive voice. And run-on sentences. And this whole present tense thing...I fail at it.

But meh. I'll have to do more practice. Thanks for reading and have a nice day. ^.^


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